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IPF(5) IPF(5)
NAME
ipf, ipf.conf - IPFilter firewall rules file format
DESCRIPTION
The ipf.conf file is used to specify rules for the firewall, packet
authentication and packet accounting components of IPFilter. To load
rules specified in the ipf.conf file, the ipf(8) program is used.
For use as a firewall, there are two important rule types: those that
block and drop packets (block rules) and those that allow packets
through (pass rules.) Accompanying the decision to apply is a collec-
tion of statements that specify under what conditions the result is to
be applied and how.
The simplest rules that can be used in ipf.conf are expressed like
this:
block in all
pass out all
Each rule must contain at least the following three components
* a decision keyword (pass, block, etc.)
* the direction of the packet (in or out)
* address patterns or "all" to match any address informa-
tion
Longlines
For rules lines that are particularly long, it is possible to split
them over multiple lines implicity like this:
pass in on bgeo proto tcp from 1.1.1.1 port > 1000
to 2.2.2.2 port < 5000 flags S keep state
or explicitly using the backslash ('\') character:
pass in on bgeo proto tcp from 1.1.1.1 port > 1000 \
to 2.2.2.2 port < 5000 flags S keep state
Comments
Comments in the ipf.conf file are indicated by the use of the '#' char-
acter. This can either be at the start of the line, like this:
# Allow all ICMP packets in
pass in proto icmp from any to any
Or at the end of a like, like this:
pass in proto icmp from any to any # Allow all ICMP packets in
Firewall rules
This section goes into detail on how to construct firewall rules that
are placed in the ipf.conf file.
It is beyond the scope of this document to describe what makes a good
firewall rule set or which packets should be blocked or allowed in.
Some suggestions will be provided but further reading is expected to
fully understand what is safe and unsafe to allow in/out.
Filterrulekeywords
The first word found in any filter rule describes what the eventual
outcome of a packet that matches it will be. Descriptions of the many
and various sections that can be used to match on the contents of
packet headers will follow on below.
The complete list of keywords, along with what they do is as follows:
pass rules that match a packet indicate to ipfilter that it
should be allowed to continue on in the direction it is
flowing.
block rules are used when it is desirable to prevent a packet
from going any further. Packets that are blocked on the
"in" side are never seen by TCP/IP and those that are
blocked going "out" are never seen on the wire.
log when IPFilter successfully matches a packet against a log
rule a log record is generated and made available for
ipmon(8) to read. These rules have no impact on whether
or not a packet is allowed through or not. So if a
packet first matched a block rule and then matched a log
rule, the status of the packet after the log rule is that
it will still be blocked.
count rules provide the administrator with the ability to count
packets and bytes that match the criteria laid out in the
configuration file. The count rules are applied after
NAT and filter rules on the inbound path. For outbound
packets, count rules are applied before NAT and before
the packet is dropped. Thus the count rule cannot be used
as a true indicator of link layer
auth rules cause the matching packet to be queued up for pro-
cessing by a user space program. The user space program
is responsible for making an ioctl system call to collect
the information about the queued packet and another ioctl
system call to return the verdict (block, pass, etc) on
what to do with the packet. In the event that the queue
becomes full, the packets will end up being dropped.
call provides access to functions built into IPFilter that allow
for more complex actions to be taken as part of the deci-
sion making that goes with the rule.
decapsulate rules instruct ipfilter to remove any other headers
(IP, UDP, AH) and then process what is inside as a new
packet. For non-UDP packets, there are builtin checks
that are applied in addition to whatever is specified in
the rule, to only allow decapsulation of recognised pro-
tocols. After decapsulating the inner packet, any filter-
ing result that is applied to the inner packet is also
applied to the other packet.
The default way in which filter rules are applied is for the
last matching rule to be used as the decision maker. So even if
the first rule to match a packet is a pass, if there is a later
matching rule that is a block and no further rules match the
packet, then it will be blocked.
MatchingNetworkInterfaces
On systems with more than one network interface, it is necessary to be
able to specify different filter rules for each of them. In the first
instance, this is because different networks will send us packets via
each network interface but it is also because of the hosts, the role
and the resulting security policy that we need to be able to distin-
guish which network interface a packet is on.
To accomodate systems where the presence of a network interface is
dynamic, it is not necessary for the network interface named in a fil-
ter rule to be present in the system when the rule is loaded. This can
lead to silent errors being introduced and unexpected behaviour with
the simplest of keyboard mistakes - for example, typing in hem0 instead
of hme0 or hme2 instead of hme3.
On Solaris systems prior to Solaris 10 Update 4, it is not possible to
filter packets on the loopback interface (lo0) so filter rules that
specify it will have no impact on the corresponding flow of packets.
See below for Solaris specific tips on how to enable this.
Some examples of including the network interface in filter rules are:
block in on bge0 all
pass out on bge0 all
Addressmatching(basic)
The first and most basic part of matching for filtering rules is to
specify IP addresses and TCP/UDP port numbers. The source address
information is matched by the "from" information in a filter rule and
the destination address information is matched with the "to" informa-
tion in a filter rule.
The typical format used for IP addresses is CIDR notation, where an IP
address (or network) is followed by a '/' and a number representing the
size of the netmask in bits. This notation is used for specifying
address matching in both IPv4 and IPv6. If the '/' and bitmask size are
excluded from the matching string, it is assumed that the address spec-
ified is a host address and that the netmask applied should be all 1's.
Some examples of this are:
pass in from 10.1.0.0/24 to any
block out from any to 10.1.1.1
It is not possible to specify a range of addresses that does not have a
boundary that can be defined by a standard subnet mask.
Namesinsteadofaddresses
Hostnames, resolved either via DNS or /etc/hosts, or network
names, resolved via /etc/networks, may be used in place of
actual addresses in the filter rules. WARNING: if a hostname
expands to more than one address, only the *first* is used in
building the filter rule.
Caution should be exercised when relying on DNS for filter rules
in case the sending and receiving of DNS packets is blocked when
ipf(8) is processing that part of the configuration file, lead-
ing to long delays, if not errors, in loading the filter rules.
ProtocolMatching
To match packets based on TCP/UDP port information, it is first neces-
sary to indicate which protocol the packet must be. This is done using
the "proto" keyword, followed by either the protocol number or a name
which is mapped to the protocol number, usually through the /etc/proto-
cols file.
pass in proto tcp from 10.1.0.0/24 to any
block out proto udp from any to 10.1.1.1
pass in proto icmp from any to 192.168.0.0/16
Sendingbackerrorpackets
When a packet is just discarded using a block rule, there is no feed-
back given to the host that sent the packet. This is both good and bad.
If this is the desired behaviour and it is not desirable to send any
feedback about packets that are to be denied. The catch is that often a
host trying to connect to a TCP port or with a UDP based application
will send more than one packet because it assumes that just one packet
may be discarded so a retry is required. The end result being logs can
become cluttered with duplicate entries due to the retries.
To address this problem, a block rule can be qualified in two ways.
The first of these is specific to TCP and instructs IPFilter to send
back a reset (RST) packet. This packet indicates to the remote system
that the packet it sent has been rejected and that it shouldn't make
any further attempts to send packets to that port. Telling IPFilter to
return a TCP RST packet in response to something that has been received
is achieved with the return-rst keyword like this:
block return-rst in proto tcp from 10.0.0.0/8 to any
When sending back a TCP RST packet, IPFilter must construct a new
packet that has the source address of the intended target, not the
source address of the system it is running on (if they are different.)
For all of the other protocols handled by the IP protocol suite, to
send back an error indicating that the received packet was dropped
requires sending back an ICMP error packet. Whilst these can also be
used for TCP, the sending host may not treat the received ICMP error as
a hard error in the same way as it does the TCP RST packet. To return
an ICMP error it is necessary to place return-icmp after the block key-
word like this:
block return-icmp in proto udp from any to 192.168.0.1/24
When electing to return an ICMP error packet, it is also possible to
select what type of ICMP error is returned. Whilst the full compliment
of ICMP unreachable codes can be used by specifying a number instead of
the string below, only the following should be used in conjunction with
return-icmp. Which return code to use is a choice to be made when
weighing up the pro's and con's. Using some of the codes may make it
more obvious that a firewall is being used rather than just the host
not responding.
filter-prohib (prohibited by filter) sending packets to the des-
tination given in the received packet is prohibited due
to the application of a packet filter
net-prohib (prohibited network) sending packets to the destina-
tion given in the received packet is administratively
prohibited.
host-unk (host unknown) the destination host address is not
known by the system receiving the packet and therefore
cannot be reached.
host-unr (host unreachable) it is not possible to reach the host
as given by the destination address in the packet header.
net-unk (network unknown) the destination network address is not
known by the system receiving the packet and therefore
cannot be reached.
net-unr (network unreachable) it is not possible to forward the
packet on to its final destination as given by the desti-
nation address
port-unr (port unreachable) there is no application using the
given destination port and therefore it is not possible
to reach that port.
proto-unr (protocol unreachable) the IP protocol specified in
the packet is not available to receive packets.
An example that shows how to send back a port unreachable packet
for UDP packets to 192.168.1.0/24 is as follows:
block return-icmp(port-unr) in proto udp from any to 192.168.1.0/24
In the above examples, when sending the ICMP packet, IPFilter
will construct a new ICMP packet with a source address of the
network interface used to send the packet back to the original
source. This can give away that there is an intermediate system
blocking packets. To have IPFilter send back ICMP packets where
the source address is the original destination, regardless of
whether or not it is on the local host, return-icmp-as-dest is
used like this:
block return-icmp-as-dest(port-unr) in proto udp \
from any to 192.168.1.0/24
TCP/UDPPortMatching
Having specified which protocol is being matched, it is then possible
to indicate which port numbers a packet must have in order to match the
rule. Due to port numbers being used differently to addresses, it is
therefore possible to match on them in different ways. IPFilter allows
you to use the following logical operations:
< x is true if the port number is greater than or equal to x and
less than or equal to y is true if the port number in the packet
is less than x
<= x is true if the port number in the packet is less than or equal
to x
> x is true if the port number in the packet is greater than x
>= x is true if the port number in the packet is greater or equal to
x
= x is true if the port number in the packet is equal to x
!= x is true if the port number in the packet is not equal to x
Additionally, there are a number of ways to specify a range of ports:
x <> y is true if the port number is less than a and greater than y
x >< y is true if the port number is greater than x and less than y
x:y is true if the port number is greater than or equal to x and
less than or equal to y
Some examples of this are:
block in proto tcp from any port >= 1024 to any port < 1024
pass in proto tcp from 10.1.0.0/24 to any port = 22
block out proto udp from any to 10.1.1.1 port = 135
pass in proto udp from 1.1.1.1 port = 123 to 10.1.1.1 port = 123
pass in proto tcp from 127.0.0.0/8 to any port = 6000:6009
If there is no desire to mention any specific source or destintion
information in a filter rule then the word "all" can be used to indi-
cate that all addresses are considered to match the rule.
IPv4orIPv6
If a filter rule is constructed without any addresses then IPFilter
will attempt to match both IPv4 and IPv6 packets with it. In the next
list of rules, each one can be applied to either network protocol
because there is no address specified from which IPFilter can derive
with network protocol to expect.
pass in proto udp from any to any port = 53
block in proto tcp from any port < 1024 to any
To explicitly match a particular network address family with a specific
rule, the family must be added to the rule. For IPv4 it is necessary to
add family inet and for IPv6, family inet6. Thus the next rule will
block all packets (both IPv4 and IPv6:
block in all
but in the following example, we block all IPv4 packets and only allow
in IPv6 packets:
block in family inet all
pass in family inet6 all
To continue on from the example where we allowed either IPv4 or IPv6
packets to port 53 in, to change that such that only IPv6 packets to
port 53 need to allowed blocked then it is possible to add in a proto-
col family qualifier:
pass in family inet6 proto udp from any to any port = 53
Firstmatchvslastmatch
To change the default behaviour from being the last matched rule
decides the outcome to being the first matched rule, the word "quick"
is inserted to the rule.
Extended Packet MatchingBeyondusingplainaddresses
On firewalls that are working with large numbers of hosts and networks
or simply trying to filter discretely against various hosts, it can be
an easier administration task to define a pool of addresses and have a
filter rule reference that address pool rather than have a rule for
each address.
In addition to being able to use address pools, it is possible to use
the interface name(s) in the from/to address fields of a rule. If the
name being used in the address section can be matched to any of the
interface names mentioned in the rule's "on" or "via" fields then it
can be used with one of the following keywords for extended effect:
broadcast use the primary broadcast address of the network interface
for matching packets with this filter rule;
pass in on fxp0 proto udp from any to fxp0/broadcast port = 123
peer use the peer address on point to point network interfaces for
matching packets with this filter rule. This option typically
only has meaningful use with link protocols such as SLIP and
PPP. For example, this rule allows ICMP packets from the remote
peer of ppp0 to be received if they're destined for the address
assigned to the link at the firewall end.
pass in on ppp0 proto icmp from ppp0/peer to ppp0/32
netmasked use the primary network address, with its netmask, of the
network interface for matching packets with this filter rule. If
a network interface had an IP address of 192.168.1.1 and its
netmask was 255.255.255.0 (/24), then using the word "netmasked"
after the interface name would match any addresses that would
match 192.168.1.0/24. If we assume that bge0 has this IP address
and netmask then the following two rules both serve to produce
the same effect:
pass in on bge0 proto icmp from any to 192.168.1.0/24
pass in on bge0 proto icmp from any to bge0/netmasked
network using the primary network address, and its netmask, of the net-
work interface, construct an address for exact matching. If a
network interface has an address of 192.168.1.1 and its netmask
is 255.255.255.0, using this option would only match packets to
192.168.1.0.
pass in on bge0 proto icmp from any to bge0/network
Another way to use the name of a network interface to get the address
is to wrap the name in ()'s. In the above method, IPFilter looks at the
interface names in use and to decide whether or not the name given is a
hostname or network interface name. With the use of ()'s, it is possi-
ble to tell IPFilter that the name should be treated as a network
interface name even though it doesn't appear in the list of network
interface that the rule ias associated with.
pass in proto icmp from any to (bge0)/32
Usingaddresspools
Rather than list out multiple rules that either allow or deny specific
addresses, it is possible to create a single object, call an address
pool, that contains all of those addresses and reference that in the
filter rule. For documentation on how to write the configuration file
for those pools and load them, see ippool.conf(5) and ippool(8). There
are two types of address pools that can be defined in ippool.conf(5):
trees and hash tables. To refer to a tree defined in ippool.conf(5),
use this syntax:
pass in from pool/trusted to any
Either a name or number can be used after the '/', just so long as it
matches up with something that has already been defined in
ipool.conf(5) and loaded in with ippool(8). Loading a filter rule that
references a pool that does not exist will result in an error.
If hash tables have been used in ippool.conf(5) to store the addresses
in instead of a tree, then replace the word pool with hash:
pass in from any to hash/webservers
There are different operational characteristics with each, so there may
be some situations where a pool works better than hash and vice versa.
MatchingTCPflags
The TCP header contains a field of flags that is used to decide if the
packet is a connection request, connection termination, data, etc. By
matching on the flags in conjunction with port numbers, it is possible
to restrict the way in which IPFilter allows connections to be created.
A quick overview of the TCP flags is below. Each is listed with the
letter used in IPFilter rules, followed by its three or four letter
pneumonic.
S SYN - this bit is set when a host is setting up a connection. The
initiator typically sends a packet with the SYN bit and the
responder sends back SYN plus ACK.
A ACK - this bit is set when the sender wishes to acknowledge the
receipt of a packet from another host
P PUSH - this bit is set when a sending host has send some data that is
yet to be acknowledged and a reply is sought
F FIN - this bit is set when one end of a connection starts to close
the connection down
U URG - this bit is set to indicate that the packet contains urgent
data
R RST - this bit is set only in packets that are a reply to another
that has been received but is not targetted at any open port
C CWN
E ECN
When matching TCP flags, it is normal to just list the flag that you
wish to be set. By default the set of flags it is compared against is
"FSRPAU". Rules that say "flags S" will be displayed by ipfstat(8) as
having "flags S/FSRPAU". This is normal. The last two flags, "C" and
"E", are optional - they may or may not be used by an end host and have
no bearing on either the acceptance of data nor control of the connec-
tion. Masking them out with "flags S/FSRPAUCE" may cause problems for
remote hosts making a successful connection.
pass in quick proto tcp from any to any port = 22 flags S/SAFR
pass out quick proto tcp from any port = 22 to any flags SA
By itself, filtering based on the TCP flags becomes more work but when
combined with stateful filtering (see below), the situation changes.
MatchingonICMPheaderinformation
The TCP and UDP are not the only protocols for which filtering beyond
just the IP header is possible, extended matching on ICMP packets is
also available. The list of valid ICMP types is different for IPv4 vs
IPv6.
As a practical example, to allow the ping command to work against a
specific target requires allowing two different types of ICMP packets,
like this:
pass in proto icmp from any to webserver icmp-type echo
pass out proto icmp from webserver to any icmp-type echorep
The ICMP header has two fields that are of interest for filtering: the
ICMP type and code. Filter rules can accept either a name or number for
both the type and code. The list of names supported for ICMP types is
listed below, however only ICMP unreachable errors have named codes
(see above.)
The list of ICMP types that are available for matching an IPv4 packet
are as follows:
echo (echo request), echorep (echo reply), inforeq (information
request), inforep (information reply), maskreq (mask request), maskrep
(mask reply), paramprob (parameter problem), redir (redirect), routerad
(router advertisement), routersol (router solicit), squence (source
quence), timest (timestamp), timestreq (timestamp reply), timex (time
exceeded), unreach (unreachable).
The list of ICMP types that are available for matching an IPv6 packet
are as follows:
echo (echo request), echorep (echo reply), fqdnquery (FQDN query), fqd-
nreply (FQDN reply), inforeq (information request), inforep (informa-
tion reply), listendone (MLD listener done), listendqry (MLD listener
query), listendrep (MLD listener reply), neighadvert (neighbour
advert), neighborsol (neighbour solicit), paramprob (parameter prob-
lem), redir (redirect), renumber (router renumbering), routerad (router
advertisement), routersol (router solicit), timex (time exceeded),
toobig (packet too big), unreach (unreachable, whoreq (WRU request),
whorep (WRU reply).
Stateful Packet Filtering
Stateful packet filtering is where IPFilter remembers some information
from one or more packets that it has seen and is able to apply it to
future packets that it receives from the network.
What this means for each transport layer protocol is different. For
TCP it means that if IPFilter sees the very first packet of an attempt
to make a connection, it has enough information to allow all other sub-
sequent packets without there needing to be any explicit rules to match
them. IPFilter uses the TCP port numbers, TCP flags, window size and
sequence numbers to determine which packets should be matched. For UDP,
only the UDP port numbers are available. For ICMP, the ICMP types can
be combined with the ICMP id field to determine which reply packets
match a request/query that has already been seen. For all other proto-
cols, only matching on IP address and protocol number is available for
determining if a packet received is a mate to one that has already been
let through.
The difference this makes is a reduction in the number of rules from 2
or 4 to 1. For example, these 4 rules:
pass in on bge0 proto tcp from any to any port = 22
pass out on bge1 proto tcp from any to any port = 22
pass in on bge1 proto tcp from any port = 22 to any
pass out on bge0 proto tcp from any port = 22 to any
can be replaced with this single rule:
pass in on bge0 proto tcp from any to any port = 22 flags S keep state
Similar rules for UDP and ICMP might be:
pass in on bge0 proto udp from any to any port = 53 keep state
pass in on bge0 proto icmp all icmp-type echo keep state
When using stateful filtering with TCP it is best to add "flags S" to
the rule to ensure that state is only created when a packet is seen
that is an indication of a new connection. Although IPFilter can gather
some information from packets in the middle of a TCP connection to do
stateful filtering, there are some options that are only sent at the
start of the connection which alter the valid window of what TCP
accepts. The end result of trying to pickup TCP state in mid connection
is that some later packets that are part of the connection may not
match the known state information and be dropped or blocked, causing
problems. If a TCP packet matches IP addresses and port numbers but
does not fit into the recognised window, it will not be automatically
allowed and will be flagged inside of IPFitler as "out of window"
(oow). See below, "Extra packet attributes", for how to match on this
attribute.
Once a TCP connection has reached the established state, the default
timeout allows for it to be idle for 5 days before it is removed from
the state table. The timeouts for the other TCP connection states vary
from 240 seconds to 30 seconds. Both UDP and ICMP state entries have
asymetric timeouts where the timeout set upon seeing packets in the
forward direction is much larger than for the reverse direction. For
UDP the default timeouts are 120 and 12 seconds, for ICMP 60 and 6 sec-
onds. This is a reflection of the use of these protocols being more for
query-response than for ongoing connections. For all other protocols
the timeout is 60 seconds in both directions.
Statefulfilteringoptions
The following options can be used with stateful filtering:
limit limit the number of state table entries that this rule can create
to the number given after limit. A rule that has a limit speci-
fied is always permitted that many state table entries, even if
creating an additional entry would cause the table to have more
entries than the otherwise global limit.
pass ... keep state(limit 100)
age sets the timeout for the state entry when it sees packets going
through it. Additionally it is possible to set the tieout for
the reply packets that come back through the firewall to a dif-
ferent value than for the forward path. allowing a short timeout
to be set after the reply has been seen and the state no longer
required.
pass in quick proto icmp all icmp-type echo \
keep state (age 3)
pass in quick proto udp from any \
to any port = 53 keep state (age 30/1)
strict only has an impact when used with TCP. It forces all packets
that are allowed through the firewall to be sequential: no out
of order delivery of packets is allowed. This can cause signifi-
cant slowdown for some connections and may stall others. Use
with caution.
pass in proto tcp ... keep state(strict)
noicmperr prevents ICMP error packets from being able to match state
table entries created with this flag using the contents of the
original packet included.
pass ... keep state(noicmperr)
sync indicates to IPFilter that it needs to provide information to the
user land daemons responsible for syncing other machines state
tables up with this one.
pass ... keep state(sync)
nolog do not generate any log records for the creation or deletion of
state table entries.
pass ... keep state(nolog)
icmp-head rather than just precent ICMP error packets from being able
to match state table entries, allow an ACL to be processed that
can filter in or out ICMP error packets based as you would with
normal firewall rules. The icmp-head option requires a filter
rule group number or name to be present, just as you would use
with head.
pass in quick proto tcp ... keep state(icmp-head 101)
block in proto icmp from 10.0.0.0/8 to any group 101
max-srcs allows the number of distinct hosts that can create a state
entry to be defined.
pass ... keep state(max-srcs 100)
pass ... keep state(limit 1000, max-srcs 100)
max-per-src whilst max-srcs limits the number of individual hosts that
may cause the creation of a state table entry, each one of those
hosts is still table to fill up the state table with new entries
until the global maximum is reached. This option allows the num-
ber of state table entries per address to be limited.
pass ... keep state(max-srcs 100, max-per-src 1)
pass ... keep state(limit 100, max-srcs 100, max-per-src 1)
Whilst these two rules might seem identical, in that they both
ultimately limit the number of hosts and state table entries
created from the rule to 100, there is a subtle difference: the
second will always allow up to 100 state table entries to be
created whereas the first may not if the state table fills up
from other rules.
Further, it is possible to specify a netmask size after the per-
host limit that enables the per-host limit to become a per-sub-
net or per-network limit.
pass ... keep state(max-srcs 100, max-per-src 1/24)
If there is no IP protocol implied by addresses or other fea-
tures of the rule, IPFilter will assume that no netmask is an
all ones netmask for both IPv4 and IPv6.
Tieingdownaconnection
For any connection that transits a firewall, each packet will be seen
twice: once going in and once going out. Thus a connection has 4 flows
of packets:
forward inbound packets
forward outbound packets
reverse inbound packets
reverse outbound packets
IPFilter allows you to define the network interface to be used at all
four points in the flow of packets. For rules that match inbound pack-
ets, out-via is used to specify which interfaces the packets go out,
For rules that match outbound packets, in-via is used to match the
inbound packets. In each case, the syntax generalises to this:
pass ... in on forward-in,reverse-in \
out-via forward-out,reverse-out ...
pass ... out on forward-out,reverse-out \
in-via forward-in,reverse-in ...
An example that pins down all 4 network interfaces used by an ssh con-
nection might look something like this:
pass in on bge0,bge1 out-via bge1,bge0 proto tcp \
from any to any port = 22 flags S keep state
Workingwithpacketfragments
Fragmented packets result in 1 packet containing all of the layer 3 and
4 header information whilst the data is split across a number of other
packets.
To enforce access control on fragmented packets, one of two approaches
can be taken. The first is to allow through all of the data fragments
(those that made up the body of the original packet) and rely on match-
ing the header information in the "first" fragment, when it is seen.
The reception of body fragments without the first will result in the
receiving host being unable to completely reassemble the packet and
discarding all of the fragments. The following three rules deny all
fragmented packets from being received except those that are UDP and
even then only allows those destined for port 2049 to be completed.
block in all with frags
pass in proto udp from any to any with frag-body
pass in proto udp from any to any port = 2049 with frags
Another mechanism that is available is to track "fragment state". This
relies on the first fragment of a packet that arrives to be the frag-
ment that contains all of the layer 3 and layer 4 header information.
With the receipt of that fragment before any other, it is possible to
determine which other fragments are to be allowed through without need-
ing to explicitly allow all fragment body packets. An example of how
this is done is as follows:
pass in proto udp from any prot = 2049 to any with frags keep fags
Building a tree of rules
Writing your filter rules as one long list of rules can be both ineffi-
cient in terms of processing the rules and difficult to understand. To
make the construction of filter rules easier, it is possible to place
them in groups. A rule can be both a member of a group and the head of
a new group.
Using filter groups requires at least two rules: one to be in the group
one one to send matchign packets to the group. If a packet matches a
filtre rule that is a group head but does not match any of the rules in
that group, then the packet is considered to have matched the head
rule.
Rules that are a member of a group contain the word group followed by
either a name or number that defines which group they're in. Rules that
form the branch point or starting point for the group must use the word
head, followed by either a group name or number. If rules are loaded in
that define a group but there is no matching head then they will effec-
tively be orphaned rules. It is possible to have more than one head
rule point to the same group, allowing groups to be used like subrou-
tines to implement specific common policies.
A common use of filter groups is to define head rules that exist in the
filter "main line" for each direction with the interfaces in use. For
example:
block in quick on bge0 all head 100
block out quick on bge0 all head 101
block in quick on fxp0 all head internal-in
block out quick on fxp0 all head internal-out
pass in quick proto icmp all icmp-type echo group 100
In the above set of rules, there are four groups defined but only one
of them has a member rule. The only packets that would be allowed
through the above ruleset would be ICMP echo packets that are received
on bge0.
Rules can be both a member of a group and the head of a new group,
allowing groups to specialise.
block in quick on bge0 all head 100
block in quick proto tcp all head 1006 group 100
Another use of filter rule groups is to provide a place for rules to be
dynamically added without needing to worry about their specific order-
ing amongst the entire ruleset. For example, if I was using this simple
ruleset:
block in quick all with bad
block in proto tcp from any to any port = smtp head spammers
pass in quick proto tcp from any to any port = smtp flags S keep state
and I was getting lots of connections to my email server from 10.1.1.1
to deliver spam, I could load the following rule to complement the
above:
block in quick from 10.1.1.1 to any group spammers
Decapsulation
Rule groups also form a different but vital role for decapsulation
rules. With the following simple rule, if IPFilter receives an IP
packet that has an AH header as its layer 4 payload, IPFilter would
adjust its view of the packet internally and then jump to group 1001
using the data beyond the AH header as the new transport header.
decapsulate in proto ah all head 1001
For protocols that are recognised as being used with tunnelling or oth-
erwise encapsulating IP protocols, IPFilter is able to decide what it
has on the inside without any assistance. Some tunnelling protocols use
UDP as the transport mechanism. In this case, it is necessary to
instruct IPFilter as to what protocol is inside UDP.
decapsulate l5-as(ip) in proto udp from any \
to any port = 1520 head 1001
Currently IPFilter only supports finding IPv4 and IPv6 headers directly
after the UDP header.
If a packet matches a decapsulate rule but fails to match any of the
rules that are within the specified group, processing of the packet
continues to the next rule after the decapsulate and IPFilter's inter-
nal view of the packet is returned to what it was prior to the decapsu-
late rule.
It is possible to construct a decapsulate rule without the group head
at the end that ipf(8) will accept but such rules will not result in
anything happening.
PolicyBasedRouting
With firewalls being in the position they often are, at the boundary of
different networks connecting together and multiple connections that
have different properties, it is often desirable to have packets flow
in a direction different to what the routing table instructs the ker-
nel. These decisions can often be extended to changing the route based
on both source and destination address or even port numbers.
To support this kind of configuration, IPFilter allows the next hop
destination to be specified with a filter rule. The next hop is given
with the interface name to use for output. The syntax for this is
interface:ip.address. It is expected that the address given as the next
hop is directly connected to the network to which the interface is.
pass in on bge0 to bge1:1.1.1.1 proto tcp \
from 1.1.2.3 to any port = 80 flags S keep state
When this feature is combined with stateful filtering, it becomes pos-
sible to influence the network interface used to transmit packets in
both directions because we now have a sense for what its reverse flow
of packets is.
pass in on bge0 to bge1:1.1.1.1 reply-to hme1:2.1.1.2 \
proto tcp from 1.1.2.3 to any port = 80 flags S keep state
If the actions of the routing table are perfectly acceptable, but you
would like to mask the presence of the firewall by not changing the TTL
in IP packets as they transit it, IPFilter can be instructed to do a
"fastroute" action like this:
pass in on bge0 fastroute proto icmp all
This should be used with caution as it can lead to endless packet
loops. Additionally, policy based routing does not change the IP
header's TTL value.
A variation on this type of rule supports a duplicate of the original
packet being created and sent out a different network. This can be use-
ful for monitoring traffic and other purposes.
pass in on bge0 to bge1:1.1.1.1 reply-to hme1:2.1.1.2 \
dup-to fxp0:10.0.0.1 proto tcp from 1.1.2.3 \
to any port = 80 flags S keep state
MatchingIPv4options
The design for IPv4 allows for the header to be upto 64 bytes long,
however most traffic only uses the basic header which is 20 bytes long.
The other 44 bytes can be uesd to store IP options. These options are
generally not necessary for proper interaction and function on the
Internet today. For most people it is sufficient to block and drop all
packets that have any options set. This can be achieved with this rule:
block in quick all with ipopts
This rule is usually placed towards the top of the configuration so
that all incoming packets are blocked.
If you wanted to allow in a specific IP option type, the syntax changes
slightly:
pass in quick proto igmp all with opt rtralrt
The following is a list of IP options that most people encounter and
what their use/threat is.
lsrr (loose source route) the sender of the packet includes a list of
addresses that they wish the packet to be routed through to on
the way to the destination. Because replies to such packets are
expected to use the list of addresses in reverse, hackers are
able to very effectively use this header option in address
spoofing attacks.
rr (record route) the sender allocates some buffer space for recording
the IP address of each router that the packet goes through. This
is most often used with ping, where the ping response contains a
copy of all addresses from the original packet, telling the
sender what route the packet took to get there. Due to perfor-
mance and security issues with IP header options, this is almost
no longer used.
rtralrt (router alert) this option is often used in IGMP messages as a
flag to routers that the packet needs to be handled differently.
It is unlikely to ever be received from an unknown sender. It
may be found on LANs or otherwise controlled networks where the
RSVP protocol and multicast traffic is in heavy use.
ssrr (strict source route) the sender of the packet includes a list of
addresses that they wish the packet to be routed through to on
the way to the destination. Where the lsrr option allows the
sender to specify only some of the nodes the packet must go
through, with the ssrr option, every next hop router must be
specified.
The complete list of IPv4 options that can be matched on is: addext
(Address Extention), cipso (Classical IP Security Option), dps (Dynamic
Packet State), e-sec (Extended Security), eip (Extended Internet Proto-
col), encode (ENCODE), finn (Experimental Flow Control), imitd (IMI
Traffic Descriptor), lsrr (Loose Source Route), mtup (MTU Probe - obso-
lete), mtur (MTU response - obsolete), nop (No Operation), nsapa (NSAP
Address), rr (Record Route), rtralrt (Router Alert), satid (Stream
Identifier), sdb (Selective Directed Broadcast), sec (Security), ssrr
(Strict Source Route), tr (Tracerote), ts (Timestamp), ump (Upstream
Multicast Packet), visa (Experimental Access Control) and zsu (Experi-
mental Measurement).
SecuritywithCIPSOandIPSO
IPFilter supports filtering on IPv4 packets using security attributes
embedded in the IP options part of the packet. These options are usu-
ally only used on networks and systems that are using lablled security.
Unless you know that you are using labelled security and your network-
ing is also labelled, it is highly unlikely that this section will be
relevant to you.
With the traditional IP Security Options (IPSO), packets can be tagged
with a security level. The following keywords are recognised and match
with the relevant RFC with respect to the bit patterns matched: confid
(confidential), rserve-1 (1st reserved value), rserve-2 (2nd reserved
value), rserve-3 (3rd reserved value), rserve-4 (4th reserved value),
secret (secret), topsecret (top secret), unclass (unclassified).
block in quick all with opt sec-class unclass
pass in all with opt sec-class secret
MatchingIPv6extensionheaders
Just as it is possible to filter on the various IPv4 header options, so
too it is possible to filter on the IPv6 extension headers that are
placed between the IPv6 header and the transport protocol header.
dstopts (destination options), esp (encrypted, secure, payload), frag
(fragment), hopopts (hop-by-hop options), ipv6 (IPv6 header), mobility
(IP mobility), none, routing.
Logging
There are two ways in which packets can be logged with IPFilter. The
first is with a rule that specifically says log these types of packets
and the second is a qualifier to one of the other keywords. Thus it is
possible to both log and allow or deny a packet with a single rule.
pass in log quick proto tcp from any to any port = 22
When using stateful filtering, the log action becomes part of the
result that is remembered about a packet. Thus if the above rule was
qualified with keep state, every packet in the connection would be
logged. To only log the first packet from every packet flow tracked
with keep state, it is necessary to indicate to IPFilter that you only
wish to log the first packet.
pass in log first quick proto tcp from any to any port = 22 \
flags S keep state
If it is a requirement that the logging provide an accurate representa-
tion of which connections are allowed, the log action can be qualified
with the option or-block. This allows the administrator to instruct
IPFilter to block the packet if the attempt to record the packet in
IPFilter's kernel log records (which have an upper bound on size)
failed. Unless the system shuts down or reboots, once a log record is
written into the kernel buffer, it is there until ipmon(8) reads it.
block in log proto tcp from any to any port = smtp
pass in log or-block first quick proto tcp from any \
to any port = 22 flags S keep state
By default, IPFilter will only log the header portion of a packet
received on the network. A portion of the body of a packet, upto 128
bytes, can also be logged with the body keyword. ipmon(8) will display
the contents of the portion of the body logged in hex.
block in log body proto icmp all
When logging packets from ipmon(8) to syslog, by default ipmon(8) will
control what syslog facility and priority a packet will be logged with.
This can be tuned on a per rule basis like this:
block in quick log level err all with bad
pass in log level local1.info proto tcp \
from any to any port = 22 flags S keep state
ipfstat(8) reports how many packets have been successfully logged and
how many failed attempts to log a packet there were.
Filterrulecomments
If there is a desire to associate a text string, be it an administra-
tive comment or otherwise, with an IPFilter rule, this can be achieved
by giving the filter rule a comment. The comment is loaded with the
rule into the kernel and can be seen when the rules are listed with
ipfstat.
pass in quick proto tcp from any \
to port = 80 comment "all web server traffic is ok"
pass out quick proto tcp from any port = 80 \
to any comment "all web server traffic is ok"
Tags
To enable filtering and NAT to correctly match up packets with rules,
tags can be added at with NAT (for inbound packets) and filtering (for
outbound packets.) This allows a filter to be correctly mated with its
NAT rule in the event that the NAT rule changed the packet in a way
that would mean it is not obvious what it was.
For inbound packets, IPFilter can match the tag used in the filter
rules with that set by NAT. For outbound rules, it is the reverse, the
filter sets the tag and the NAT rule matches up with it.
pass in ... match-tag(nat=proxy)
pass out ... set-tag(nat=proxy)
Another use of tags is to supply a number that is only used with log-
ging. When packets match these rules, the log tag is carried over into
the log file records generated by ipmon(8). With the correct use of
tools such as grep, extracting log records of interest is simplified.
block in quick log ... set-tag(log=33)
Filter Rule Expiration
IPFilter allows rules to be added into the kernel that it will remove
after a specific period of time by specifying rule-ttl at the end of a
rule. When listing rules in the kernel using ipfstat(8), rules that
are going to expire will NOT display "rule-ttl" with the timeout,
rather what will be seen is a comment with how many ipfilter ticks left
the rule has to live.
The time to live is specified in seconds.
pass in on fxp0 proto tcp from any \
to port = 22 flags S keep state rule-ttl 30
Internal packet attributes
In addition to being able to filter on very specific network and trans-
port header fields, it is possible to filter on other attributes that
IPFilter attaches to a packet. These attributes are placed in a rule
after the keyword "with", as can be seen with frags and frag-body
above. The following is a list of the other attributes available:
oow the packet's IP addresses and TCP ports match an existing entry in
the state table but the sequence numbers indicate that it is
outside of the accepted window.
block return-rst in quick proto tcp from any to any with not oow
bcast this is set by IPFilter when it receives notification that the
link layer packet was a broadcast packet. No checking of the IP
addresses is performned to determine if it is a broadcast desti-
nation or not.
block in quick proto udp all with bcast
mcast this is set by IPFilter when it receives notification that the
link layer packet was a multicast packet. No checking of the IP
addresses is performned to determine if it is a multicast desti-
nation or not.
pass in quick proto udp from any to any port = dns with mcast
mbcast can be used to match a packet that is either a multicast or
broadcast packet at the link layer, as indicated by the operat-
ing system.
pass in quick proto udp from any to any port = ntp with mbcast
nat the packet positively matched a NAT table entry.
bad sanity checking of the packet failed. This could indicate that the
layer 3/4 headers are not properly formed.
bad-src when reverse path verification is enabled, this flag will be
set when the interface the packet is received on does not match
that which would be used to send a packet out of to the source
address in the received packet.
bad-nat an attempt to perform NAT on the packet failed.
not each one of the attributes matched using the "with" keyword can
also be looked for to not be present. For example, to only allow
in good packets, I can do this:
block in all
pass in all with not bad
Tuning IPFilter
The ipf.conf file can also be used to tune the behaviour of IPFilter,
allowing, for example, timeouts for the NAT/state table(s) to be set
along with their sizes. The presence and names of tunables may change
from one release of IPFilter to the next. The tunables that can be
changed via ipf.conf is the same as those that can be seen and modified
using the -T command line option to ipf(8).
NOTE: When parsing ipf.conf, ipf(8) will apply the settings before
loading any rules. Thus if your settings are at the top, these may be
applied whilst the rules not applied if there is an error further down
in the configuration file.
To set one of the values below, the syntax is simple: "set", followed
by the name of the tuneable to set and then the value to set it to.
set state_max 9999;
set state_size 10101;
A list of the currently available variables inside IPFilter that may be
tuned from ipf.conf are as follows:
active set through -s command line switch of ipf(8). See ipf(8) for
detals.
chksrc when set, enables reverse path verification on source addresses
and for filters to match packets with bad-src attribute.
control_forwarding when set turns off kernel forwarding when IPFilter
is disabled or unloaded.
default_pass the default policy - whether packets are blocked or
passed, etc - is represented by the value of this variable. It
is a bit field and the bits that can be set are found in
<netinet/ip_fil.h>. It is not recommended to tune this value
directly.
ftp_debug set the debugging level of the in-kernel FTP proxy. Debug
messages will be printed to the system console.
ftp_forcepasv when set the FTP proxy must see a PASV/EPSV command
before creating the state/NAT entries for the 227 response.
ftp_insecure when set the FTP proxy will not wait for a user to login
before allowing data connections to be created.
ftp_pasvonly when set the proxy will not create state/NAT entries for
when it sees either the PORT or EPRT command.
ftp_pasvrdr when enabled causes the FTP proxy to create very insecure
NAT/state entries that will allow any connection between the
client and server hosts when a 227 reply is seen. Use with
extreme caution.
ftp_single_xfer when set the FTP proxy will only allow one data connec-
tion at a time.
hostmap_size sets the size of the hostmap table used by NAT to store
address mappings for use with sticky rules.
icmp_ack_timeout default timeout used for ICMP NAT/state when a reply
packet is seen for an ICMP state that already exists
icmp_minfragmtu sets the minimum MTU that is considered acceptable in
an ICMP error before deciding it is a bad packet.
icmp_timeout default timeout used for ICMP NAT/state when the packet
matches the rule
ip_timeout default timeout used for NAT/state entries that are not
TCP/UDP/ICMP.
ipf_flags
ips_proxy_debug this sets the debugging level for the proxy support
code. When enabled, debugging messages will be printed to the
system console.
log_all when set it changes the behaviour of "log body" to log the
entire packet rather than just the first 128 bytes.
log_size sets the size of the in-kernel log buffer in bytes.
log_suppress when set, IPFilter will check to see if the packet it is
logging is similar to the one it previously logged and if so,
increases the occurance count for that packet. The previously
logged packet must not have yet been read by ipmon(8).
min_ttl is used to set the TTL value that packets below will be marked
with the low-ttl attribute.
nat_doflush if set it will cause the NAT code to do a more aggressive
flush of the NAT table at the next opportunity. Once the flush
has been done, the value is reset to 0.
nat_lock this should only be changed using ipfs(8)
nat_logging when set, NAT will create log records that can be read from
/dev/ipnat.
nat_maxbucket maximum number of entries allowed to exist in each NAT
hash bucket. This prevents an attacker trying to load up the
hash table with entries in a single bucket, reducing perfor-
mance.
nat_rules_size size of the hash table to store map rules.
nat_table_max maximum number of entries allowed into the NAT table
nat_table_size size of the hash table used for NAT
nat_table_wm_high when the fill percentage of the NAT table exceeds
this mark, more aggressive flushing is enabled.
nat_table_wm_low this sets the percentage at which the NAT table's
agressive flushing will turn itself off at.
rdr_rules_size size of the hash table to store rdr rules.
state_lock this should only be changed using ipfs(8)
state_logging when set, the stateful filtering will create log records
that can be read from /dev/ipstate.
state_max maximum number of entries allowed into the state table
state_maxbucket maximum number of entries allowed to exist in each
state hash bucket. This prevents an attacker trying to load up
the hash table with entries in a single bucket, reducing perfor-
mance.
state_size size of the hash table used for stateful filtering
state_wm_freq this controls how often the agressive flushing should be
run once the state table exceeds state_wm_high in percentage
full.
state_wm_high when the fill percentage of the state table exceeds this
mark, more aggressive flushing is enabled.
state_wm_low this sets the percentage at which the state table's agres-
sive flushing will turn itself off at.
tcp_close_wait timeout used when a TCP state entry reaches the
FIN_WAIT_2 state.
tcp_closed timeout used when a TCP state entry is ready to be removed
after either a RST packet is seen.
tcp_half_closed timeout used when a TCP state entry reaches the
CLOSE_WAIT state.
tcp_idle_timeout timeout used when a TCP state entry reaches the ESTAB-
LISHED state.
tcp_last_ack timeout used when a TCP NAT/state entry reaches the
LAST_ACK state.
tcp_syn_received timeout applied to a TCP NAT/state entry after SYN-ACK
packet has been seen.
tcp_syn_sent timeout applied to a TCP NAT/state entry after SYN packet
has been seen.
tcp_time_wait timeout used when a TCP NAT/state entry reaches the
TIME_WAIT state.
tcp_timeout timeout used when a TCP NAT/state entry reaches either the
half established state (one ack is seen after a SYN-ACK) or one
side is in FIN_WAIT_1.
udp_ack_timeout default timeout used for UDP NAT/state when a reply
packet is seen for a UDP state that already exists
udp_timeout default timeout used for UDP NAT/state when the packet
matches the rule
update_ipid when set, turns on changing the IP id field in NAT'd pack-
ets to a random number.
Tableofvisiblevariables
A list of all of the tunables, their minimum, maximum and current val-
ues is as follows.
Name Min Max Current
active 0 0 0
chksrc 0 1 0
control_forwarding 0 1 0
default_pass 0 MAXUINT 134217730
ftp_debug 0 10 0
ftp_forcepasv 0 1 1
ftp_insecure 0 1 0
ftp_pasvonly 0 1 0
ftp_pasvrdr 0 1 0
ftp_single_xfer 0 1 0
hostmap_size 1 MAXINT 2047
icmp_ack_timeout 1 MAXINT 12
icmp_minfragmtu 0 1 68
icmp_timeout 1 MAXINT 120
ip_timeout 1 MAXINT 120
ipf_flags 0 MAXUINT 0
ips_proxy_debug 0 10 0
log_all 0 1 0
log_size 0 524288 32768
log_suppress 0 1 1
min_ttl 0 1 4
nat_doflush 0 1 0
nat_lock 0 1 0
nat_logging 0 1 1
nat_maxbucket 1 MAXINT 22
nat_rules_size 1 MAXINT 127
nat_table_max 1 MAXINT 30000
nat_table_size 1 MAXINT 2047
nat_table_wm_high 2 100 99
nat_table_wm_low 1 99 90
rdr_rules_size 1 MAXINT 127
state_lock 0 1 0
state_logging 0 1 1
state_max 1 MAXINT 4013
state_maxbucket 1 MAXINT 26
state_size 1 MAXINT 5737
state_wm_freq 2 999999 20
state_wm_high 2 100 99
state_wm_low 1 99 90
tcp_close_wait 1 MAXINT 480
tcp_closed 1 MAXINT 60
tcp_half_closed 1 MAXINT 14400
tcp_idle_timeout 1 MAXINT 864000
tcp_last_ack 1 MAXINT 60
tcp_syn_received 1 MAXINT 480
tcp_syn_sent 1 MAXINT 480
tcp_time_wait 1 MAXINT 480
tcp_timeout 1 MAXINT 480
udp_ack_timeout 1 MAXINT 24
udp_timeout 1 MAXINT 240
update_ipid 0 1 0
Calling out to internal functions
IPFilter provides a pair of functions that can be called from a rule
that allow for a single rule to jump out to a group rather than walk
through a list of rules to find the group. If you've got multiple net-
works, each with its own group of rules, this feature may help provide
better filtering performance.
The lookup to find which rule group to jump to is done on either the
source address or the destination address but not both.
In this example below, we are blocking all packets by default but then
doing a lookup on the source address from group 1010. The two rules in
the ipf.conf section are lone members of their group. For an incoming
packet that is from 1.1.1.1, it will go through three rules: (1) the
block rule, (2) the call rule and (3) the pass rule for group 1020.
For a packet that is from 3.3.2.2, it will also go through three rules:
(1) the block rule, (2) the call rule and (3) the pass rule for group
1030. Should a packet from 3.1.1.1 arrive, it will be blocked as it
does not match any of the entries in group 1010, leaving it to only
match the first rule.
from ipf.conf
-------------
block in all
call now srcgrpmap/1010 in all
pass in proto tcp from any to any port = 80 group 1020
pass in proto icmp all icmp-type echo group 1030
from ippool.conf
----------------
group-map in role=ipf number=1010
{ 1.1.1.1 group = 1020, 3.3.0.0/16 group = 1030; };
IPFiltermatchingexpressions
An experimental feature that has been added to filter rules is to use
the same expression matching that is available with various commands to
flush and list state/NAT table entries. The use of such an expression
precludes the filter rule from using the normal IP header matching.
pass in exp { "tcp.sport 23 or tcp.sport 50" } keep state
FilterruleswithBPF
On platforms that have the BPF built into the kernel, IPFilter can be
built to allow BPF expressions in filter rules. This allows for packet
matching to be on arbitrary data in the packt. The use of a BPF expres-
sion replaces all of the other protocol header matching done by IPFil-
ter.
pass in bpf-v4 { "tcp and (src port 23 or src port 50)" } \
keep state
These rules tend to be write-only because the act of compiling the fil-
ter expression into the BPF instructions loaded into the kernel can
make it difficut to accurately reconstruct the original text filter.
The end result is that while ipf.conf() can be easy to read, under-
standing the output from ipfstat might not be.
VARIABLES
This configuration file, like all others used with IPFilter, supports
the use of variable substitution throughout the text.
nif="ppp0";
pass in on $nif from any to any
would become
pass in on ppp0 from any to any
Variables can be used recursively, such as 'foo="$bar baz";', so long
as $bar exists when the parser reaches the assignment for foo.
See ipf(8) for instructions on how to define variables to be used from
a shell environment.
FILES
/dev/ipf /etc/ipf.conf
/usr/share/examples/ipf Directory with examples.
SEE ALSOipf(8), ipfstat(8), ippool.conf(5), ippool(8)IPF(5)